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Samsung’s Wave is Free on Vodafone and Virgin Media

Liam — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:45:12 +0000

We recently reviewed the new Samsung Wave. Mobile network operator Vodafone UK and virtual network operator Virgin Media have now announced that they are now offering the new Samsung Wave smart phone as a free handset under several of their new contract deals and tariffs. The announcement just came a while back and is a welcome treat for anyone who has been curious about trying out the new mobile platform from Samsung.

Vodafone and Virgin are offering similar rates for the Wave handset, but Virgin Mobile adds in a little incentive of having twice the number of free minutes. Either way, the handset is free for 25 Pound monthly tariff for two years.

As you may have already heard, the Samsung Wave is the very first handset from the Korean manufacturer that makes use of their proprietary operating system, the Bada. The OS itself was announced last year and had been presented to developers in an early unveiling last December. While end users could not make much out of the holiday presentation, it seems that Samsung has been successful in getting developers to support the open source platform.

Aside from the new operating system, the Wave also features new Samsung technology in the form of a super AMOLED screen. As seen originally in the Mobile World Congress where the handset first debuted, the visual quality of the screen is astounding as the display is able to render colors in very rich and deep tones.

The handset is running on an ARM Cortex A8 1GHz CPU, has a 5 mega pixel camera with autofocus and LED flash (as well as geo tagging and 720p video recording), almost 400MB of free internal storage, and to top it off, the 3.3 inch super AMOLED capacitive touch screen display. It is cheaper than all the other high end Android smart phones as well.

Samsung Wave Review

Liam — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 10:42:44 +0000

Samsung have long been associated with stylish and practical mobiles: The D500 led the way for a new future of the ‘slide’ model and the Tocco provided consumers with a low-priced but fashionable touch screen. Enter Samsung’s latest offering to the mobile phone community – The Wave.

A slim mobile with a 3.3″ touch screen gives this phone an aura of class and fashion. But that does not mean that it takes anything away from the practical end. Indeed over the last few years, with the recession biting into consumers’ pockets, many have opted for practicality and function over basic design – so it’s good to know that the Samsung Wave deals available can offer the practicality and function required without sacrificing style, or breaking the banks (again).

The 800 x 480 pixels screen proves to be more than sufficient to meet the demands of web surfing and photo viewing and with a Wi-Fi support and a 3.5G high-speed data option, not to mention its 1ghz processor and 2gb internal memory with the ability to expand to 32gb, video streaming will be accessible like never before on a Samsung phone. Indeed 720p HD video playback will be perfectly acceptable to its processor. A 5 mega-pixel camera and the ability to record in HD gives The Wave a further edge in multimedia mobile technology.

However perhaps the most appealing element of this new offering from Samsung is the debut of its Operation System – Bada. While it is not entirely new – the system is based on existing proprietary OS – it does include a new ‘layer’ which will enable a innovative developing community to thrive. What does this mean? In essence it will allow something akin to the ‘iPhone apps’ to flourish and give The Wave an ‘open source’ feel to it as it will mean that independent developers and programmers will work closely with Samsung to let the phone reach its full potential.

For some the size of The Wave, 118 mm, will be a put off to those who want a compact mobile but when you realize what it has to offer this should quickly become a distant apprehension. Furthermore others have raised concerns over its new Operation System, however there is no reason why it shouldn’t be able to succeed with a committed group of developers behind it and it seems as though there is little to stop The Wave making a huge splash in the mobile market. The Samsung Wave is available on Vodafone now.

Samsung Galaxy S and Samsung Wave Heading to the UK

Simon — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 09:11:41 +0000

It has already been announced before that both of Samsung’s new smart phones will be getting a UK launch but this officially confirms the two devices. First popping up on a German online store a couple of days back, the Galaxy S and the Wave are currently the only devices available that use the new super AMOLED touch screen technology.

The feature was first shown at the Mobile World Congress where Samsung literally dazzled everyone with the amazing quality of the screen. To be honest, it pretty much pulled the rug from under the Bada operating system which was also being shown off on the Wave.

Anyway, the Bada OS is an open source mobile platform much like the Google Android OS. Samsung has been able to get plenty of developer support for the new system back in December when they showed off the various capabilities of the OS.

It is confirmed that the Wave will arrive in the UK by May. This smart phone will be running on a 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor and will sport a 3.3 inch super AMOLED capacitive touch screen display. The built in 5 mega pixel snapper will have autofocus, flash and 720p video recording.

The Samsung Galaxy S is the latest Android handset from the Korean manufacturer. The phone is the second device that uses the super AMOLED touch screen display (at 4 inches, it is also bigger than the Wave). The phone will be using the TouchWiz user interface and will be featuring the new Smart Life application as well as the ThinkFree document editor.

Both devices are confirmed to be DivX certified smart phones –making Samsung the first manufacturer to bring DivX to HD capable portable devices.

Find out more about these two new super AMOLED smart phones from Samsung at GSM Arena.